


spend the days dreaming and the nights awake

by epigraphs



Category: The Sound of Music - Rodgers/Hammerstein/Lindsay & Crouse
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:55:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29373441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epigraphs/pseuds/epigraphs
Summary: There are no good words in the German language to describe the way he makes her feel. It’s like she’s flying across a mountain range with the wind in her hair and the sun on her face, all because of one look, one touch, one kiss.
Relationships: Georg von Trapp/Maria von Trapp
Comments: 12
Kudos: 32





	spend the days dreaming and the nights awake

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was born from a recent Sound of Music rewatch in honour of Christopher Plummer, and the mental image of Maria blushing the colour of Punschkrapfen icing. For the purposes of this one-shot, they’ve got some time in Aigen as newlyweds before Georg is summoned to Bremerhaven. This is not beta’d, so all errors are my own. The title is from _Pierre_ by Ryn Weaver.

There’s a breeze floating through the late summer air, rustling the leaves on the trees by the villa, but Maria hardly notices the chill from her perch in her husband’s arms. They’re sitting on the balcony that juts out from their bedroom, wrapped up in one another, entirely oblivious to the outside world. 

She and Georg have taken to spending their evenings outside for as long as the weather will allow, strolling around the grounds or visiting the gazebo, or, on one especially sweltering night, jumping in the lake wearing nothing but their wedding bands and shrieking as they hit the cold water.

But tonight is one of her favourite kinds of evenings. They’re curled up on the settee, talking about everything and nothing at all. 

Their courtship had essentially been nonexistent, their engagement a flurry of wedding planning and chaperoned outings designed to counteract the society rumour mill, ever-hungry for any shred of scandal regarding the Captain’s ending of his near-engagement with the Baroness and (very) sudden actual engagement with his children’s _governess,_ of all people. And the honeymoon, well… thinking about their honeymoon still makes Maria flush crimson all over and sends her heart racing. 

As much as they’d gotten to know one another over the course of all three, Maria still relishes the ways in which they’re learning about each other now, as they settle into the rhythms of marriage and everyday life. Ordinary little things that she hadn’t been able to notice when she was the governess, like how Georg wears glasses when he reads at night — which she assures him make him look distinguished, and not old at all — or the different ways his brow furrows when he receives letters from Berlin, or his sister, or Agathe’s parents. 

How he takes his coffee with milk but no sugar, and can never refuse cook’s Linzer cookies with jam.

Small quirks that prove to her that she _knows_ this person, sometimes better than herself. It’s a private little thrill, to find out just how connected they are, how they work together as a unit, how they make each other whole. 

She worried once, foolishly, that she might run out of things to talk to her husband about once they married — after all, the convent placed a premium on silence and Maria often wondered if the sisters kept the vow as much for its practicality as its proof of devotion — but thankfully, it’s been far from the case.

She and Georg talked easily of their childhoods. His parents, kind but distant, sent him to boarding school as soon as they could, his sister following soon thereafter. No wonder he took to the Navy’s discipline like a fish to water, she’d said, and he’d laughed at the observation as much as her apt turn of phrase. 

When she told him of her parents’ deaths, and her uncle’s loveless home, he wrapped his arms around her fiercely and swore she’d never again be alone. 

Max had hinted at enough sordid tales in Georg’s youth to pique Maria’s interest, and she watched in private glee and fascination as her stoic captain flushed bright pink as he recounted hijinks both at university and at ports far and wide. 

It has taken them a while to get to Agathe. Maria knew this wouldn’t come easy to him, and she didn’t want to pry. She knows he’d loved her very much, that he’d planned on them growing old together. Her death had caused something in Georg to die too, and she only wishes his pain could have been eased sooner. 

Tonight, he’d gathered up the courage to share the memories he’d worked so hard to forget, and she had listened with rapt attention as he’d told her about the first woman he’d ever loved.

“I would have wanted you to,” she says eventually. “Live happily ever after together, I mean. If you could have.” 

“Maria,” he rasps, and she can’t put the expression on his face into words. He’s looking at her like she’s something infinitely precious, and she feels equal parts safe and exposed as his eyes meet hers, drinking her in. “What did I ever do to deserve you?” 

She shrugs her shoulders. “I could ask you the same question.” 

Georg lets out a short laugh before capturing her lips in a searing kiss that takes her breath away. 

They’re flushed when they break apart, and she feels like she’s burning under the intensity of his gaze. Maria sends up a prayer in hopes that this — the connection that shoots between them like a live wire — never fades. Georg smooths an errant wisp of hair behind her ear, and the rough pad of his thumb leaves gooseflesh in its wake. 

“So there you have it, darling,” he says. His tone is playful again, deliberately light. He wants to move on, and she understands completely. “All the women I’ve ever kissed. Well, nearly.” He winks at her, and Maria’s stomach does a flip.

“They do say that practice makes perfect,” she quips. 

Georg pinches her side and Maria lets out a yelp. “Now that’s just not fair. Not everyone can be a natural like you, my dear, and that skilled during their first kiss.” 

“I’m afraid I have to disappoint you,” she says, a coy smile on her face as she leans back into his embrace, “but someone else got there first.”

She may have been a virginal would-be-nun when Georg met her, but she wasn’t oblivious to the facts of life. Cows bore calves and chickens laid eggs and even postulants sat biology exams when they were in school. 

And then there was Peter, when she was about to graduate from the teacher’s college in Vienna. He was a piano tuner’s apprentice with a mop of blonde hair and a permanent grin on his face. Twice, he brought her flowers when he came to the music shop where she worked on the weekends. 

One afternoon, they had been sitting in a cafe and he told her she was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. Maria’s cheeks turned as pink as the Punschkrapfen on her plate and she ducked her head to disguise her smile. 

He’d taken her hand halfway through the walk back to her dormitory, squeezing once when he felt her stiffen. Maria’s breath had hitched, and she’d been glad that he hadn’t turned to meet her eyes and seen them go wide at the contact. 

Before they reached her street, Peter had tugged on her hand and pulled them both through a small archway into a tiny courtyard. “Maria,” he’d said, his voice awed in a way she’d never heard it before, and then he’d pressed his lips to hers before she even knew what to think. 

They’d been firm and insistent, warm and wet, and he’d wrapped one arm around her waist while the other cupped her cheek. Too stunned to react, she’d gone rigid in his grasp. There was a swooping feeling deep in her belly, but more than that, there was shock at his forwardness, at the shadowed courtyard he’d brought her to that hid them from the bustle on the street. 

After a few seconds, she’d managed to place a hand on his chest and push him away, only half-conscious of what she was doing, and the stunned look on his face would’ve been funny if it hadn’t immediately morphed into offence. 

“Maria,” he’d said, again, and she had half a mind to ask him why he kept repeating her name like he needed a constant reminder of what she was called. 

“I’m sorry,” she’d said instead, before she could stop herself. A lump was forming in her throat, and she swallowed it down, determined to keep her face blank. She could hear the blood roaring in her ears. “Peter, I can’t do this.” 

With that, she turned on her heel and left the courtyard, leaving him standing there in her wake. 

Kneeling beside her bed that night, hands clasped in prayer, she pleaded with God to show her why she’d fled, why she’d left this perfectly nice boy standing there without so much as a word. Why his kiss had unsettled her more than she cared to admit, why she suddenly felt so unmoored. 

“And that’s when you decided to become a nun?” Georg asks as his fingers trace circles on her forearms. His voice is like honey in her ear, low and smooth, and the timbre of it sends a shiver down her spine. 

Maria leans back into the warm, solid bulk of his chest, and his arms wrap tighter around her. She hums. “Not quite. I was a teacher for two years in a village near Innsbruck, and the children were all wonderful…” She trails off and smiles as she feels him nod behind her. No surprises there. “But I missed Salzburg, I missed my mountain, I missed the Abbey.” 

Georg hums his assent. He nips her earlobe and Maria shudders, feeling a slow smile spread across her face. “Now tell me, Fräulein,” he starts, his voice laced with mirth. There’s a teasing emphasis on the title, the role she used to play, “were there any young men in that village as smart as this Peter and me, who recognized that you are indeed the most beautiful person in the world?”

Maria laughs. 

“No. I’m afraid I’d sworn off men altogether at that stage, _dear,”_ and she doesn’t miss the low rumble of the chuckle that escapes him, “and was determined to ignore them for the rest of my life.” 

She smiles at the thought of her old self, so stubborn and sure of her path. It would have never worked out, this she knows now with a certainty that surprises her still. This life, with this man and these children and all the rest of it, was God’s will for her, of that she’s sure. 

“I, for one, am glad you gave the male sex a second chance,” Georg says, “if not for my sake, then for the children’s.” 

Maria twists in his arms so she can look in his eyes, piercing blue and full with so much gratitude and adoration that it could rip her heart clean in two. 

“Well it’s not every day that you come across a dashing sea captain in need of a talking-to,” she quips, a playful lilt to her tone. She presses the softest of kisses to his lips, and watches his eyes flutter shut. 

When he opens them again, there’s a newfound intensity in his gaze. “I mean it Maria,” he says, slowly, like he needs her to hear every single word as clearly as possible. “You saved me. You saved our family.” 

“I love you,” she says. It’s the only thing she can think to say, but it doesn’t nearly do her feelings justice. There are no good words in the German language to describe the way he makes her feel. It’s like she’s flying across a mountain range with the wind in her hair and the sun on her face, all because of one look, one touch, one kiss. 

“I love you too.” Georg pulls her close and crashes his mouth to hers, hot and insistent and oh-so-different from the kiss Peter had given her all those years ago. She melts into his arms as her insides practically catch fire. Never, _never_ could she have imagined that it could be like this, such total and utter bliss, this level of connection to another soul. 

Maria is sure that there’s something holy about it, how two people become one. 

The morning after their wedding night, she’d woken to Georg studying her, tears forming at the corners of his eyes. She’d been stunned — in all the weeks she’d known him, her sea captain had never come close to crying. 

He must have seen the look of concern on her face, because he shook his head instinctively, and pulled her into a searing kiss. “I never thought I’d feel this way again,” he’d rasped when they’d broken apart, both gasping for breath. Maria had wiped a tear from the corner of his eye and peppered kisses to his cheeks, his chin, his forehead. 

“I love you,” she’d said, over and over again. 

She knows how precious their connection is, to both of them. His second chance and her true path, converging together, the children making them whole. It’s never more obvious to her than in these moments, where nothing matters but the way he holds her in his arms. 

As Georg lavishes kisses across her cheeks, her neck, down to the hollow of her collarbone, all Maria can think of is how on this settee on a balcony in a villa by the lake, with the moon shining bright and seven children asleep down the hall, she’s finally found a home.


End file.
